I made Bond Breaker with a tool called Unity3D (nevermind the fact that my game is decidedly 2D). This let me port it to iPhones, Android devices, and browsers. You could play it on my website just like a Flash game. Well, not just like a Flash game. You see, you needed a Unity WebPlayer Plugin, something that most people do not have. (For the record, Flash requires a plugin, too… but everyone already installed that a long time ago. Not so much with Unity.) And while it’s free and easy to download, there are a bunch of people who don’t want to – or can’t – download the plugin. All people who wanted to play Bond Breaker, but couldn’t!

That’s Terrible

I know. But a recent Unity3D update lets me port my game to JavaScript — where you can simply play the game in a browser. No plugin required! This will work on any browser that supports WebGL… so sorry, Internet Explorer 10.0 users, you’re out of luck. Also you can’t play my game. But if you have Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or any number of other browsers (IE 11 should work?), then you can easily go play the game.

Yay!

Indeed. I for one love this new, lowered barrier to gameplay. I put these games up on my site so anyone can play them — and it’s a shame if they’re hung up on a technicality. Keep your eyes peeled for future WebGL ports of my games… I’ve got my sights on the Gravity Simulator next!

Once upon a time, Andy, a dear friend of mine, had an idea for a platformer where you were electrically charged. You could electrically attract and repel to fling yourself all around the level. But, the part that excited him most, was Magnetic Fields. You see, when electric charges move in magnetic fields, they *curve*. Picture running out of a building, only to be flipped up in a semicircle and find yourself re-entering the building… via the second story. And upside down.

Thus SHOCKTOPUS was born.

Actually, thus a game filled with weird boxes was born…

What a game!

Which then became a game called MagneToad!

No one else is stealin’ my credit for this!

(Skipped it for copyright reasons / Marvel wouldn’t return my calls)

So then I created Maxwell’s Monkey!

Cute, but not a snappy enough name.

…and thus…

…finally…

…after a string of weird punny names, The Electric Shocktopus was conceived.

“Wait, why does the octopus want bananas?” Potassium.

Of course, that was a couple years ago. I developed the game over the course of nearly a year, finally bringing my vision to life.

Interlude

Where it sat for a year, waiting. My initial plan was to release the game as a flash game. Give the game away free online, and I’d make money through some sponsorships/advertising. But that plan never panned out. Turns out, that’s (a) much less common/lucrative than it once was, and (b) not a great fit for an educational game. So the Shocktopus remained on the back burner, while I turned to other projects – like Bond Breaker.

Resurrection

The helpful and ever-present prodding from friends/family/forum-goers finally set me straight. It was time to release this game. But not as a flash game – that wasn’t going to work out. Instead I’d release it as a game in Unity. It’d be faster, stronger, bigger, and no longer confined by the browser window. After a fair bit of work porting the game over, it went from looking like this…

As I mentioned above, this is a Beta, so it isn’t finished by any measure. There are a whole list of improvements I’m planning on making. But it’s here – you can get it, play it, make and share levels, and when you do, throw some feedback my way. I’m interested to hear what you think!